It's not necromancy, I promise

For this to be necromancy, Abnormous Attire would have to be dead. Believe me, it's not - we just haven't accomplished anything tangible recently. To be able to present anything past the concept stage requires my friends to have the free time that summer brings, so that I can force them to do free menial playtesting labor.
However, I can present a new idea, one that isn't even IN the concept stage - Nate and I were just discussing it a few minutes ago, in fact.
We've been playing our own game. Oh, yes, we've been playing it and playing it. And...something just seems off. It's a simple game, with simple rules and simple execution. It's meant to be played quickly and easily, to break the ice and establish common ground between a few people.

That's all well and good. But, being a part of it, we also understand how demanding our target demographic is. And this game...is exactly what we stated it to be. Fast, easy, simple. That's honestly not enough. It has almost no depth.

But if we make it any deeper, that would just make it more complex - much more complex than we want it to be! That was how it seemed, at least. So, we decided...duels are serving their purpose. They're still ice breakers. They don't need to be deep. But...We still want the game to be fun. That's where...Mass combat comes in.

Art and such

Again, using my lunch break to keep you all informed. It's been almost two weeks since my last post, mainly because I've been hesitant to write about how I can't show you what we've been doing recently, mainly because there isn't much to show for it. Such a large gap might make it seem like we've stopped if I let it continue, though, so I hope you don't mind that this post isn't very substantial.
In short, the area seeing the most progress has been design. We have a bunch of pictures scanned in using the high-quality scanner at my office - I need our artist to look through them, and hopefully fix his broken computer, because otherwise the drawings won't progress much past the scanned-sketch phase.
Playtesting is possible for me to do alone, and I will do so if I really need to, but we much prefer to playtest as a group. Suffice to say, if the delays due to schedule constraints continue as they have, I'll probably do it myself.
We really need to speed things up if we want prototype shirts ready by Anime Boston...well, time to bring the approaching deadlines to the attention of my friends.

Shirts and Printing

So, I figured I'd use my lunch break at work to update any readers on what's been occurring on the development and production end.
Playtesting round two is, unfortunately, not yet finished - Jeremy bought a new card game, King's Blood, and that's what we've spent the majority of our free time together doing. Still, it should be done fairly soon.

The area seeing the most progress is the practical side of things; I've discussed some prices with my soon-to-be-proud-owner-of-a-screen-printer friend, and looked at different blank shirts we could possibly buy in bulk. I'd really like to see some of the potential shirt choices in real life, though...It feels wrong to buy 36 and upwards of a shirt you've never seen, worn, or touched.

Either way, our total price per shirt (without shipping) seems to be ranging from $5-$6...So I'd like to set the price at a tentative $10. Ideally, I'd want it to be lower, especially for launch! But seeing as how we're giving away free shirts at Anime Boston, we have to at least recoup our losses. Does $10 sound like something you'd be willing to pay?

Playtesting!

Playtesting and other maintenance issues (along with daily life) have kept me away from the blog. But, the results of our extensive playtesting are finally in...And we have some balancing to do. Go ahead and click the image to enlarge.



Now, this chart probably needs a bit of an explanation. The first, largest grid is the results of each battle (There is an optimum strategy to use, as each character against each other character - we've assumed that both players know exactly what they're doing).
At each result space, look up to find who went first, and to the left to see who went second; sometimes the order matters, and other times it doesn't. The 'Top Goes First' above the image is the operating rule, here.
The reason for the grayed-out spaces should be pretty obvious, since it's where each character fights with its double...But the blacked-out ones are a bit different. Basically, that's where neither character could damage the other! Steel wall, meet steel wall, meet facepalm. More work for us to do.

The two smaller grids are just the tallies; one shows how much each category won, and the other displays the winnings of every individual character type. It should be pretty clear why I say we need to balance; we have some ideas for how to modify this. Finally, there's an elemental chart for you to peruse.

More updates should come after we complete the next round of playtesting, or if there's anything else interesting to report. Oh, and there are some rough sketches of various things on the facebook page, so be sure to check that out by clicking this, if you have an account!

From Concept to Confusing Concept

Hello, and welcome to the blog and single internet stronghold of Abnormous Attire. Of course, that name wouldn't sound very familiar to you - we don't really exist yet. But before Abnormous begins selling shirts, we plan to promote our name, and interest in our product.

Thus, we present an in-depth look into our fusion of geekdoms - shirts, and trading card games. I give you...The trading clothes game. You wear a (debatably) stylish shirt, which determines your element and class - maybe you want to wear a lightning thief shirt, or be an earth mage. The battles are designed to be simple, with addition and subtraction the only required operations.

Essentially, it's designed to be pick up and play. There's some strategy involved, of course, but for now the vast majority of strategy lies in selecting your shirt. Should you see anyone else with an AA shirt - it's TIME to D-D-D-DUEL!
Please, leave your feedback and thoughts. Next time, I'll explain more about the system, and perhaps showcase the stats of a few class and element combinations.